#trust me I spend every waking moment consuming media. I’m not letting anyone under the age of 10 anywhere near youtube w/o adult supervision | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

queen-of-bel · 4 years

Text

some semi-structured ramblings about kaz and paz, and why their dynamic is probably my favorite relationship of any media i’ve ever consumed

I really really love the dynamic that Paz and Kaz have with each other for so many reasons.

First off, it highlights two very important personality traits about Kaz during the Peace Walker era. It shows off how warm and friendly Kaz can be, but it also demonstrates how overconfident and reckless he is.

He takes what he considers to be “calculated risks”, vastly overestimating his own abilities to offset any negative consequences. He invited a Cipher agent to their own home turf, all for the sake of expanding MSF. It was risky as hell, and Kaz knew that, which is why he kept it a secret from Snake. In his mind, he had a plan to negate the risk of any damage that Cipher could do to them-- befriend Paz and have her switch allegiances.

Kaz knew exactly who she was– a spy only a few years younger than himself. He also knew what her objective was from the beginning. This is something that he admits to Snake at the end of Peace Walker. And yet, he still struck up a deal with Cipher and invited her and Zadornov to Colombia anyway.

It really is heartwarming to see how much effort Kaz put into reaching out to Paz.

After Zadornov was first captured, “Paz” had nowhere else to go, as Zadornov was paying for her room and board. I put “Paz” in quotes, because that was the situation that the character of “Paz Ortega Andrade” was in, not Pacifica Ocean.

Kaz knew this, and the risk of having Paz on mother base, but he was the one who really pushed for Paz to live there regardless. To quote Paz:

“I told the man that with no more money from the KGB, I could no longer afford school. …He bought my story, and when I said I would be willing to work, he took pity on me and let me stay. For some reason Miller really plead my case. That was helpful, but the man is still a fool…”

Now, you can chalk this up to him just going along with the business deal that he struck with Cipher, but his actions moving forward indicate otherwise.

It’s undeniable that Kaz really went out of his way to give Paz a comfortable and peaceful life while at MSF. Her diary tapes highlight all of the sweet interactions that they had:

“What I have got is just a common cold. The medical team said I’d need a few days’ rest, so I’ve been restricted to my room and put on bed rest… Miller told me to take it easy. “I will sing you a lullaby,” he said, then broke out a guitar and sang some incomprehensible song in Japanese. I did not need to understand the lyrics to know he’s an awful singer. Then he said, ‘You know what is good for a cold? Suppositories! Here, I’ll show you…’ He began to take off his pants, so I threw my tissue box at him to make him go away.”

“Every month, Mother Base throws a party for all the soldiers whose birthdays fall in that month… Miller seemed a little protective of me. ‘Hope they’re not being too crude,’ he said. ”

“‘C'mon, we even both have ‘peace’ in our names,’ said Miller. ‘And Zadornov - that old Russkie’s name has something to do with peace, too, right? Hey, as long as we’re having a day of peace, we ought to get an act together - The Three Peace Band!’ I thought he was joking. He then proceeded to share his idea without bothering to check with me, and now I am slated to sing. Apparently, he had heard me on deck one day and since then he’s wanted to form a band”

“With the lyrics finished, I was ready to show Miller. He does not often take things seriously, but all of a sudden he was saying ‘Paz, you have the soul of an enka songwriter.’”

(That last quote is technically from Phantom Paz, but nothing in PW states that Kaz himself was the one who wrote the lyrics for Love Deterrence, only the melody, so I’m going to go ahead and include this MSGV tape)

Of course, you could always make the argument that Kaz was just playing a role, that he was just going along with Cipher's lie and giving Paz special treatment because she's "just a teen", but let's compare his interactions with Paz versus his interactions with Chico, another youth at MSF.

Kaz's interactions with Chico were minimal at best. Not to say that he didn't like Chico, because he absolutely did. But there were never any special interactions between the two of them in the same way that he interacted with Paz.

In fact, Kaz never put that much effort into bonding with anyone else at mother base. Not Amanda, not Strangelove, not Huey, or even Cecile (or any other women at MSF that he would try to seduce). It’s clear that Kaz treated Paz differently than everyone else at MSF. Kaz is a very suave and charismatic person, and he’s used to charming his way into getting what he wants in life, with pretty minimal effort. Paz alludes to this in one of her diary tapes, scoffing at the fact that female MSF soldiers fall for his flirting "so easily".

Now, Kaz never tried to approach Paz romantically, but the success of his whole "let's get this Cipher agent to switch allegiances to MSF" plan rested on his overwhelming charm. Relying on his charisma has not failed him yet, and he had no reason to think that this situation with Paz would be any different. He thought that by reaching out to Paz, she would become loyal to MSF, effectively eliminating any threat that Cipher posed to MSF.

This is where his overconfidence comes in. He vastly underestimated Zero’s power, and how much of a grip Zero had on Paz. Paz absolutely despised Zero, but ultimately, she was terrified of betraying Cipher, calling the repercussions of that action “a fate far worse than death”.

Although, it's not as if Kaz’s efforts were completely wasted. Paz’s commitment to Cipher was wavering as time went on, and as she spent more time with MSF and everyone on mother base. However, it's important to note that Paz wasn't just grateful to the MSF staff as a whole. She was, but she particularly wanted to be close to Kaz.

In her diary tape when she was describing Kaz’s womanizing and his and Snake’s infamous sauna fight, she says something at the end that was really sad to me.

“But somehow I got the sense that for all his womanizing, Miller really only trusted one person, and that was Snake. There was no way I could ever come between the two of them. And at that thought I began to feel as if I had lost.”

We know that Paz had romantic feelings for Snake. She's suspiciously adamant in her third diary entry about her lack of interest in Snake, but her diary entries in the Phantom Pain were more honest about her feelings:

"[Snake] saved me, and I feel indebted to him, but I thought that was all he meant to me. Why does my heart flutter when I think of him?"

So going back to her diary entry in Peace Walker. When she says that she feels "lost", we know that this wasn’t her lamenting about Kaz’s womanizing habits, or what she calls his infatuation with Snake. What upsets her is her observation that Kaz only trusts Snake. She has this hopeless feeling that Kaz would never trust her in the same way.

Paz clearly wanted to be friends with Kaz. Not just friendly surface interactions, but she wanted to get to know Kaz more and bond with him on a deeper level. Unfortunately, it is this exact hopelessness that prevented Paz from expressing these feelings to him.

Of course, Kaz was blind to this inner conflict of hers. When you combine this with not only his underestimation of Zero's power, but his own overconfidence in his charisma, it's a bit of a recipe for disaster.

We see this testament to Kaz’s overconfidence after the ZEKE battle. He's actually shocked that Paz went through with Cipher's plan anyway. He really thought that his efforts to reach out to her worked, as he tells Snake:

“How could Paz… We were going to start a band together…”

At this point, Kaz has already come clean to Snake about knowing Paz's real identity. He no longer has to put up a front of "this is just a teenager". What this says to me is that these are Kaz's genuine feelings. He really was looking forward to starting a band with her, and performing with her on Peace Day.

I really like this moment because it shows that Kaz didn't just think of Paz as a way to expand MSF. He didn't spend all this time with Paz simply because it would benefit him. He felt a genuine desire to befriend and be close with her.

He’s clearly crushed that his efforts to befriend her failed. After the ZEKE battle, he admits that there was only one thing on his mind:

“After Paz tried to steal ZEKE from us, and we watched her get pulled beneath the waves… There was one thing I kept asking myself. Which was the real Paz? And which was the lie?”

What's interesting to me is that he’s not concerned about any damage to MSF that Paz may have caused, despite the fact that she hijacked ZEKE. He’s not even angry that she betrayed MSF, attempting to launch a nuclear strike on the east coast of the USA under MSF's name. He’s just dumbfounded and shell-shocked. Now, this is just my personal speculation, but I think his self-confidence really took a blow in this moment. He's always prided himself on his charisma and business acumen. For Kaz, to think that he so horribly and completely misjudged Paz’s character was a harsh wake-up call for him.

As time goes on, he does become angry, though. It’s mostly (misplaced) anger at Paz, but underneath it all, I think he’s mostly angry with himself.

In GZ, he asks Snake to bring Paz back alive, saying to kill her only if “worse comes to worst”. He uses the excuse that he wants her alive only because he wants to interrogate her and that she knows too much, but there are a couple lines of his during that mission that betrays his feelings:

“Paz is our only link to Cipher. If she’s still alive… …We need her on our side. If not us, who else is gonna rescue that bitch?”

I like that last line a lot because it really shows how conflicted Kaz feels about her. Yes, Kaz wants information on Cipher. Yes, Kaz is angry at Paz. But Kaz also wants Paz to be saved, by somebody, anybody. He just feels that MSF is the only group qualified to do so.

Now, I definitely don’t think that Paz’s well-being was the only motivation for Kaz’s asking Snake to bring her back alive. It’s just that underneath all the anger, Kaz is still clearly emotionally attached to her. In fact, Kaz even says:

“When we get our hands on Paz, intel on Cipher isn’t the only thing I want out of her. Putting aside her mission, her past, that sense of loyalty they drilled into her… I want to know… what she really thought of us.”

Ever since the ZEKE battle, Kaz has clearly been tormented with this question. At this point in time, Kaz is fully aware of what Zero and Cipher are capable of, and why Paz was sent to him. However, he recognizes Paz as more than just a Cipher agent. He wants to look past all of that– the “Paz Ortega Andrade” that Cipher had built up. He has to know what “Pacifica Ocean” truly thought of him and MSF. Whether or not his efforts to reach out to her were successful or not.

What makes this even sadder is that after the attack on mother base, Kaz incorrectly thinks that it was Paz who sold out MSF. He feels utterly betrayed, and his temper reaches a breaking point, lashing out at Paz, calling her a “spying bitch” and even attempting to attack her (which I firmly believe he would have if the medic hadn’t been holding him back).

Thinking about this from Paz’s perspective is also horribly depressing. She suffered so much torture at the hands of Skull Face, but she remained loyal to MSF, asking Skull Face to kill Zero if it meant it would save Snake. When Skull Face told her that he was planning to kill Snake as well, she pleaded with him to change his mind. Obviously, Kaz's plan worked. She did switch allegiances, betraying Zero in order to save Snake and MSF.

And yet, this is something that Kaz didn’t know. He thought that her loyalty ultimately laid with Cipher, which is why he was so furious after the attack on MSF. Paz likely didn’t even know that MSF was attacked, as she came to after Morpho had flown everyone away from base. The last experience of her life was nothing but pure rage and hatred from the person that she wanted to be closest to on mother base.

I don’t know, I just really love these two characters and their relationship a lot. Thinking about the friendship that they could have had, and the misunderstandings and tragedies that prevented either of them from knowing the truth was just heart-wrenching to watch throughout PW to GZ.

#i typed up something similar to this a while ago but it was a lot shorter and messy and i didn't proof-read it AT ALL LMAO #it was really more of a draft than anything else #finally sat down and fleshed it out and added over 1k words whoops and actually proofread so that's exciting #kazuhira miller #paz ortega andrade #two peace #metal gear solid peace walker #mg #amelia rambles

12 notes · View notes

davidchill · 6 years

Text

Luna’s Holiday, That Book, and Davina McCall.

I’ve been without my pooch for almost a week - but I’m looking forward to our reunion on Friday. In her absence, I’m rattling around in this house with nobody to talk to, so I’m taking a breather from my work and my book to write an important blog. Yes, that’s allowed. And I’ll come back to That Book in a moment.

It’s mental health awareness week, so I wanted to share my two penneth. In the hope that it might help someone… and maybe even help people to understand.

People often scoff when I tell them that I let Luna watch Coronation Street, but, truth be told, that’s one of the few shows that raise awareness of mental health. Also, Luna absolutely loves the meerkats. And the cat in the opening titles. Quite recently a popular male character took his own life, but the story was handled in a very sensitive way. Some people lambasted the storyline, saying that he’d not exhibited “signs” of being depressed - but that’s exactly what the story was trying to highlight. A lot of people with depression don’t wear their feelings on their sleeve. They’re not going to come into work every day and start sobbing at their desk, they’re more likely to be quiet, affable - and crack the occasional joke. To the outside world they’re as happy as the infamous Larry, without a care in the world - because they can’t talk about their problems or bring themselves to talk. It’s STILL a huge stigma in men of a certain age, and it really shouldn’t be. We’re told to “man up” or “cheer up” or “shut up and get on with it” when that’s the last thing one should do. A gentleman of a bygone era might tell you they cycled fifty miles to work every day, in a blizzard, with a broken leg - therefore people of today should do the same thing.

Back to Corrie; I always identify with characters who suffer with anxiety and depression. Yes, I saw the signs in the weeks leading up to the character’s suicide. The crestfallen stares into the middle distance… hiding away in the house… putting bills to one side in the hope they’ll go away…

Thankfully, I’ve not lost any friends as a direct result of depression - but a few friends have gone off the radar over the years. Especially in the past year. One minute you’re exchanging messages or amiable chat and then, suddenly, it’s almost like a switch goes and no matter how much you try and reach out or attempt to be affable, they become very standoffish and matter-of-fact. It would be easy to file such people under “rude” or “cold” but so many people are fighting private battles that we know nothing about.

For the record, if I’ve ever been aloof with anyone I can only apologise. And if anyone ever wants to open up about their struggles then I am always here to lend an ear. Social media can be a very cold place at times, and it’s easy to simply ignore people - but I think it’s important to think how you’d feel if you were constantly ignored by someone who cares for you and only wants to be kind.

In the past few years a couple of things have consumed my life. My dog and my book about my dog. The eagle-eyed amongst you might spot a link there...

In 2016, when I set up my crowdfunding page, the plan was to write a book based on life with my dog. Now this isn’t an excuse, because I don’t need an excuse... but sometimes in life things don’t go to plan. I had absolutely no idea that I’d be forced to sell my home the following year, and all the palaver that entailed. Let’s be honest... most days I could barely afford to eat properly and I owed family/friends around £5,000 so when my bank loan fell through, the only possible way of getting people off my back (and enjoying an occasional meal) was to sell my home. But that was my own fault for spending too many years working for a pittance and spending beyond my means. It’s important to have a “nest egg” and now, if I fell into financial hardship again, I wouldn’t have that “safety net” and it’d be game over.

In the days after I emerged from that gruelling home sale and being “between homes” my anxiety had reached dizzy new heights... I was being asked “Where’s this book?” Or “How’s this book coming along?” And I tried to explain that things had gone off the rails…

Until this very day, and despite sending a number of updates out to the backers - I don’t hear from someone for months and then they pop up with “How’s the book?” Or “This book better be good!” or “Yawn! Still waiting for this book!”

Such pressure always works wonders for my anxiety.

No, I can’t blame people for being curious or even vexed, but my mental well being had to come first. The book is already way over budget, so to those who donated less than £20 - you’re getting an absolute bargain. Perhaps I should split the book into two books (it’s big enough) but I simply can’t afford to publish two editions, so people will get one lengthy book.

I’m not J.K Rowling, or someone who’s being paid to write novels. So I don’t have the luxury of saying; “Today I can sit in my office and write for 10 hours.” Last week I had to juggle the book with Luna, two websites, two logo designs and delivering 800 magazines in four days.

If I was constantly popping up on social media, posting photos of my lunch, I’d understand people getting rattled about me not writing the book. It’s just irksome when, after getting up in the morning and working through until 2 or 3am, I post something [unrelated to the book] on Twitter or Facebook only to receive a dig about not writing the book. Yes, I know it’s probably “banter” but at times it comes across as passive aggression.

Yes, I’m on it. The book consumes me 24/7.

Luna’s been in Southwold since last Friday (at least one of us gets a holiday) as I found juggling the book, the dog, and multiple work deadlines was probably going to drive me to a breakdown.

Taking Luna to Southwold for a holiday while I remain home in Cambridgeshire might sound excessive. But there are few places I trust with my dog… and it actually worked out less expensive (plus I get a very brief bit of sea air too). There’s no way I can afford a holiday myself - so this was the best compromise.

Also, when I get comments like; “Try having kids!” or the extended remix… “Try two kids, three dogs, and the ex wife!” I generally shake my head.

Guys, this isn’t Top Trumps.

Anxiety and depression is utterly exhausting, and when you’re alone with a high maintenance dog, people constantly on your back about something and work deadlines then, at times, things can just get a bit much.

For years I’ve had “Where’s my money?” and now it’s “Where’s my book?” so, rest assured, there’s not a soul on this Earth who wants this book out sooner than me. It’s not going to be out in time for Comic Con on the 25th, but I still have high hopes for going to print at the end of May/ early June.

If often feels like I’ve become second to the book. I’m sure if I was hospitalised, I’d wake up in my bed to hear someone say; “Right, time to crack on with that book!” God forbid anything should happen to Luna. “At least now you can focus on the book...”

So please, before you feel the need to give me stick about the book, ask yourself a question; Is this comment really necessary?

I’ve reached a point now where I don’t actually care if this book is loved or loathed. I’ve poured my heart and soul into it, and that’s really all I can do.

I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who’s just trusted me enough to get on with it in peace. Even if it receives negative feedback, it’s been the most therapeutic endeavour of my life, and has, quite possibly, saved my mind. Perhaps my life. Every day I thank God for blessing me with a sense of humour.

Oh, and please spare me any complaints about the language. There’s nothing in there that the average 12-year-old hasn’t heard in the playground. I never, ever, swear on social media, and if a word is used (very sparingly) it’s only for comedic effect.

Finally, Davina McCall…

Early last year I was asked to appear on This Time Next Year, with Davina McCall. To this day I don’t know why, but I was selected from hundreds of people… application form, telephone interview, Skype meeting that was recorded and sent to the bigwigs at ITV… and suddenly I was sitting on the sofa, in front of a live studio audience, with Davina McCall.

The second series has just aired on ITV, but I filmed for the third series, which is presumably coming later this year. However, my interview isn’t being broadcast. They film around 100, but with only six episodes per series they can only broadcast around 30 interviews.

Davina’s lovely, and we chatted a bit about Luna and how my anxiety has held me back in life. Although coming through those doors to face the live studio audience was perhaps the most terrifying experience of my life. I was on last too - so I sat in the green room for about five hours before walking out to meet Davina. At the time I was battling to clear my debt while wishing to keep my home, get the book out, etc… but from the beginning the producers wanted to focus more on my [lack of] love life. In the end it became something that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with… and I think me finding a girlfriend within the year would have been a very tall order. What with everything else. Also, on reflection, I hope looking back at the interview wasn’t awkward for Davina, because she told me how she met her husband on a dog walk… and at the time they were still together. Like I said earlier; sometimes “life” just takes us to places that we never expect. Still, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m thankful for the opportunity.

In summery; Please try to reach out to someone today. It’s especially easy for single people to fall off the radar and be forgotten about. Talk to them. Invite them for coffee. Go on a dog walk together. They won’t bite! Unless they have a particularly “bitey” dog.

Something as simple as sending a message saying “How are you?” takes seconds (unless you have particularly large fingers) and could even save a life. Sure, you could say “It’s not my problem” or “Someone else will do it” but if everyone took that stance then the suicide rate would go through the roof.

Above all; be kind. It won’t cost you anything.

1 note · View note